Early Antwerp straight laces often had motifs shaped
like worms (vermicular), and these motifs were not symmetrical, but were
directional. They often had little flower heads on the ends of the
vines. Or perhaps one could call them vine like.
17th - 18th century Antwerp

23 EK Mechlin ground

29 EK Paris ground.

Compare these motifs to Cantu, a 19th and 20th century Italian tape
lace. Perhaps this is where the design style originated. Are they
deliberately copying this style? bkmk Also compare to Milanese tape below.

18th Antwerp type

62 BN Valenciennes ground. This particular piece was
very well preserved, which makes me hesitate about the date. It is
true to the style of 18th century Antwerp. It may be a recent copy
(recent being 19th century).

Pottenkant ( flower pot
lace) was an
Antwerp straight lace which started in the mid 1600s, c. 1650. According
to Santina Levey it started as a high fashion lace, but then fashion changed.
The old style continued to be made until about 1850, but the latter 75% of this
time period it was sold to the peasantry as part of their costume, especially
cap lace; but also was used locally as furnishing lace. This makes it very
difficult to date any particular piece with any accuracy. The style
stopped changing. It is changes in style and the shapes of the pieces
(dictated by fashion) that allow us to date laces. When the lace ceases to
follow this pattern you can't pinpoint its time of origin.

These were straight laces, usually rather wide (often about 4 to 6 inches),
and nearly always had mirror symmetry in the design. That is, the design
would be perfectly symmetrical left and right, and the motif's left and right
sides were mirror images. Often the repeat was quite long. I've seen
some with an 18 inch long repeat, although many were only 8 to 12 inches long.
The headside was usually straight. The ground could be any one of several
possibilities: Paris ground, Valenciennes ground, Flanders ground (five hole),
12 thread armure (Binche snowflakes in half stitch), Mechlin ground. As
time went on Paris ground was used more and more often, and the others fell into
disuse, for the most part.

17th Antwerp

482
lbj ph/b it Val ground. In my own mind I call these "ball head
laces" because it is like a flower head which is ball shaped. It was a
common design type in the 17th century. I have also heard these called
"cauliflower" laces.

See also 18th c Mechlin/Flanders
with Paris ground and revival era Paris lace.

17th-18th Pottenkant:
765 IT Paris ground bk
mk

18th - 19th Pottenkant:
93 IT honeycomb gnd
94 IT point ground

379 IT Ilske thinks it is Italian. Looks like tape but isn't. Very strange.
Date unknown.

Part Laces

A somewhat
similar situation occurred with Flemish and Milanese tape laces, particularly
the latter. They were made continuously from about 1650 to about 1850.
But around 1700 the style and delicacy of fashion lace changed drastically.
Laces from the old patterns couldn't be sold as fashion laces, but were useful
as furnishing linen and for church use. What is interesting about Milanese
and Flemish tape lace is that all the working methods which went into the highly
complex, delicate and fine Brussels laces of the 18th century began to develop
in these tape laces 1650-1700. Even rib stitch (also called tenstick)
started as an edge treatment in Flemish tape laces around 1690. At least I
have seen this in lace at the Art Institute of Chicago. Some of these
laces have a continuous tape which remains a constant width, and does not add or
subtract bobbins as it is worked: in other words a pure tape lace. But
some look like tape laces in terms of design, but when you look very closely you
see that the tapes widen and narrow in ways that cannot be accommodated simply
by making decorative holes or changing stitches: new threads have to be added
temporarily and removed when the tape narrows. Some also have tapes which
end: the design looks like tape lace, but is made in discrete units like a
part lace. This latter kind I've taken to calling variable width
discrete units tape
lace (vwdu), because in terms of its structure and what the lacemaker has to know, it
differs from the constant width tape lace.

Very Early Tape Laces, Probably Antwerp 17th Century

bkmk

58 ek constant width

59 ek constant width

Milanese/Flemish Tape Lace

17th century constant width. This means that the tape was woven
throughout with a constant number of bobbins. No new threads needed to be hung
in, and nothing was cut out. Where there is a ground, it was hung in after all
the tape work had been finished.

18th-19th:

739 ek

486 it

153 lh This feels like a 19th century peasant lace. But look
closely at those little empty circles, and compare them to the same
element in #486. There is also a lace in the DMC tape lace lesson
book which closely resembles this lace.